While some research suggests that vitamin A can reduce the deadliness of measles infection, it does not prevent the development or spread of the disease, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Christopher Sudfeld.
Sudfeld, associate professor of global health and nutrition, was the corresponding author of a 2010 systematic review of studies that investigated how effective the measles vaccine and vitamin A treatment are at reducing measles mortality in children. The review concluded that both are effective interventions—but, Sudfeld stresses, they accomplish this through different means.
“[Vitamin A] supplements will not prevent people from getting measles,” Sudfeld said in a March 7 Everyday Health article. “Only vaccination does that.”
He added that most of the studies with findings supporting vitamin A treatment for measles were conducted in the 1980s and 1990s in sub-Saharan Africa, where vitamin A deficiency is more common. This issue is not prevalent in the U.S.
It remains unclear if supplemental vitamin A is an effective treatment for those who are not deficient in vitamin A. And Sudfeld cautioned that vitamin A supplements should only be given under a doctor’s supervision. “Too much vitamin A can cause serious side effects like liver damage,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently touted vitamin A as key to combatting the country’s growing measles outbreak. In a March 7 Business Insider article, Sudfeld emphasized that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is the most effective strategy for stopping infections and reducing mortality.
“The best intervention we have to prevent measles is vaccination,” he said. “The MMR vaccine is safe and effective for the prevention of measles.”
Read the Everyday Health article: Can Vitamin A Help Manage Measles? What We Know (and What We Don’t)
Read the Business Insider article: RFK Jr. says vitamin A could help treat measles. Here’s what doctors think.
